Tonight i've downloaded and compiled the 2.6.30 RC1 kernel from kernel.org.
In the first boot after that, launched the Nvidia installer, 180.44 for amd64 (the last stable release at this moment) to found the same problem you guys are talking about.
Looked up to the origin of the problem:

The point is, what has to do Debian with this, it's a very simple change in one file in the kernel tree.
In Debian the linux-image-2.6.29 it's in... unstable.
So guys, less complain (to Nvidia and Debian) and learn to carry on in a unstable branch, or get back to something more stable if you find this too challenging.

BTW, with the last stable vanilla kernel, the last stable Nvidia driver compile an runs w/o bigger problem?.
Fine, that is what has to be supported.

In Debian the linux-image-2.6.29 it's in... unstable.
So guys, less complain (to Nvidia and Debian) and learn to carry on in a unstable branch, or get back to something more stable if you find this too challenging.

patch -p0 < attachment-0004.patch
# this failed for me in nvidia-graphics-drivers-180.29/debian/rules
# i edited the file manually end added this at line 96: (remove the #, of course)
[...]

Thanks upstaked

I had the same issue with the patch but I changed it a little bit and it applied correctly.
It seems the package I build was correctly built and patched but I was unable to make m-a a-i nvidia-kernel-source.
It gave me this error

Quote:

install: cannot stat `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory

Now, the nvidia 180.44-1 are available in debian repository. I tried install it and it gave me the same error

Quote:

install: cannot stat `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory

I even tried this

Build manually, with a stock kernel
Use this method if you're running a stock kernel and the two first methods failed. module-assistant should automate this process. In other words, if the first method failed but this one works, you should probably submit a bug report against module-assistant.

The following procedure is adapted from the instructions in /usr/share/doc/nvidia-kernel-source/README.Debian and is known to be potentially inexact.

Save the release number of your kernel (e.g. 2.4.27-2-k7 or 2.6.8-1-686) in a couple of environment variables:
export KVERS=$(uname -r)
export KSRC=/usr/src/linux-headers-$KVERSNote that these variables are used by the build commands below, so you really do need to set and export them, as in the above commands.
Install the kernel module source: run
apt-get install nvidia-kernel-source nvidia-kernel-common
This will give you a source tarball /usr/src/nvidia-kernel-source.tar.bz2.
Unpack it with
cd /usr/src
tar -vxjpf nvidia-kernel-source.tar.bz2
This will unpack the kernel module sources into /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel.
Install the header files for your kernel:
apt-get install linux-headers-$KVERS
This will give you kernel header files in /usr/src/linux-headers-$KVERS.
Be sure to check that the installed kernel image and kernel header packages have the same version number: run
apt-cache policy kernel-image-$KVERS linux-headers-$KVERSand
check that the version number listed as Installed is the same for both packages. If it isn't, find the distribution that has the version of linux-headers that you need, e.g. testing, and rerun the above installation command, adding '-t testing' (or whichever).
Build the kernel module package:
cd /usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel
debian/rules binary_modules

and the result was the same

Quote:

install: cannot stat `/usr/src/modules/nvidia-kernel/nvidia.ko': No such file or directory

Note:This is the first time I try to install the driver by the debian way. Usually I install it using the nvidia installer and in that way I have no problem...